Noble Blood - The Runaway Duchess

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

Hortense Mancini is perhaps most famous for being a royal mistress, but her life was a series of adventures and scandals. Hortense was willing to do whatever it took to be a woman who lived on her own terms in the 17th century. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong,

dance. And then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. It was after the restoration of the monarchy in England at the end of the 17th century, and two women were fencing in St. James Park. The fencing match wasn't violent, neither woman parried or lunged with any attempt to maim. They were giggling and twirling around each other as they fought with their training swords, gathering a small crowd of spectators around them.

I'm sure it's easy for you to imagine why they attracted so much tension. After all, they were two women publicly fencing in a park in the 1600s. But there was another reason the crowds were drawn to the fencers. Both women were famous. One was Anne Leonard, Countess of Sussex, the illegitimate daughter of the king, Charles the second, and one of his longtime mistresses, the Duchess of Cleveland. Rumor had it that Anne was conceived on the night of the king's coronation. The other woman was one of the biggest celebrities in Europe at the time,

a woman famous across multiple countries for her children. charm and looks and her outlandish gallivanting. This woman was Hortense Mancini. Hortense Mancini was born in Italy, but raised and educated in France as one of the seven nieces of the influential minister, Cardinal Mazarin. Mazarin's nieces called the Mazarinets were all well-regarded in French court for their good looks, but Hortense was considered the most beautiful. Before Hortense was 25, she was married to one of the richest men in Europe. She ran away from her husband, disguised as a man, and she became the first woman, after Margaret of Valois, to write her memoir. Certainly, she was the first to publish it within her lifetime under her own name.

Hortense's memoir was a runaway hit, widely translated and widely read, the modern-day equivalent of a bestseller. But Mancini's story didn't end there. To continue to escape her, abuse of husband's control, she fled to England, where she became mistress to King Charles II. She also began a relationship, most likely sexual, but certainly romantic, with Charles's illegitimate daughter, Anne. The two women took fencing lessons together, hence the whimsical practice in the park. All of which brings us to the final reason that people were staring at the Countess of Sussex and the Duchess Maasorraine fencing in St. James Park. The two women were wearing only their undergarments.

Hortense's story has fascinated historians and biographers for centuries. It's the type of story of a woman in these 1600s that seems tailor-made for people to describe as, quote, badass. A woman with multiple lovers of both genders, a woman who dressed as a man, who enjoyed a life of freedom almost unheard of for a woman of her era. A freedom certainly only afforded her. because of her privileged birth and good looks. It always struck me as a shame that the vast majority of interesting women who led lives that were written about in the early modern era

also happened to be the ones whom people remark were unusually attractive. For centuries, the path to power for women was proximity to power. In other words, marriage or sexual relationships with powerful men. But in Hortense's case, being able to charm royals wasn't merely a path to notoriety or relevance. It was essential to her very survival. When Hortens attempted to wrestle herself away from her domineering husband, the legal system held her vast inheritance entirely in his control.

It was the men whom Hortons charmed, who provided her political and financial security. That her story ends in tragedy only makes all of this seem like some misbegotten morality tale, as in, see foolish modern women the cost of a life of freedom. But I do hope that if this podcast serves as anything, it's a reminder that historical figures are people, not heroes or idols, not, quote, badass girls to be molded into plastic action figures. Hortense took the cards that she was dealt and played them to the best of her magnificent ability. The results, well, nothing short of scandalous. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Hortens Mancini, born in Italy, was brought to France at six years old

because her uncle, the Cardinal Mazarin, was incredibly powerful and incredibly wealthy, both important factors when it came to arranging marriages for young women, and the Manchinis had five young women that they needed to marry off. The arrangement was mutually beneficial for the Cardinal as well. Mazarin was a man who had clawed his way up from nothing, with only his intelligence and a preternatural gift for knowing the right people to befriend. The son of a Chamberlain to a powerful Italian family, Mazarin studied at college in Rome and Madrid,

before eventually coming to France as part of a diplomatic envoy from the Vatican. He was taken under the wing of the famous statesman, Cardinal Richelieu, who served as first minister to King Louis Xirteenth. When Richelieu died, Mazarin took his place. When King Louis died, Mazarin served as the de facto head of the government, while young King Louis XIV was too young to rule. But being a man of the cloth, the Cardinal had no heirs to inherit the massive fortune he had massed or to continue on his title or legacy. But he did have nieces, seven of them, five from one sister and two of the others, along with a handful of nephews. Daughters were important diplomatic tools to forge alliances with other powerful families,

something Mazarin was especially in need of at the moment. Mazarin was acutely aware that he was a Nouveau-Riche, so to speak, an outsider among the highly-born noble French families. and tensions were especially high after a rebellion called the Fronde, during which several high-born princes rebelled against the control of the monarchy. Really, Mazarin's power, because Louis XIV had yet to reach the age of majority. And so Mazarin needed all of the weapons at his disposal to solidify his place in French society. To use the common metaphor of chess for social climbing, Cardinal Mazarin was simply importing seven ponds from Italy.

The girls came in three shipments. Hortens was in the middle batch, aged six, traveling with her older sister, Marie. Hortens should have been too young to come to French court, but even at that early age, she was precocious and considered the best-looking of the lot. Mazarin met his nieces outside of Paris to size them up when they first arrived, The girls had come by galleanship from Italy, rowed by 20 slaves, which Hortens conveniently neglects to mention in her memoirs, although perhaps she was too young to understand.

Before the girls formally came to court, Mazarin wanted to make sure that they were well-trained enough in basic French etiquette to hold their own. The young girls giggled as he reminded them of the French habit of kissing on the cheeks and greeting. They passed Mazarin's inspection, but Hortense and Marie wouldn't remain at court for long. Marie, suffering from preteen angst or something more severe,

was considered unruly and too skinny. Some sources describe her as having an eating disorder. And so in order to try to straighten her out, Marie was sent to a convent for her education, with Hortense along with her. The pair of sisters bonded through the experience, which meant that Hortens would witness firsthand and feel it acutely when Marie would suffer her first disastrous heartbreak.

Back at court after their education, the seven nieces of Cardinal Mazarin became known as the mazurinettes, a group of girls all charming and pretty and distinctly Italian in French court where blonde beauties had dominated the social scene. The girls caught the eyes of several admirers, which made Mazarin's job of securing marriages easy enough. But then Marie caught the eye of the wrong person, or rather an impossible person. She fell in love with the young king, Louis XIV. He was just a year older than her, 20 at the time,

and the feeling was absolutely mutual. The two were besotted with one another, and as they strolled through the gardens of Foten Blue at midnight, They comforted each other with the fantasy that they would get married and live together forever as king and queen. Quietly, I imagine even Hortens knew that her sister's fantasy was ridiculous, but she never would have told Marie so. What mattered was that Cardinal Mazarin knew it, and the king's mother, Anne of Austria, certainly knew it. The king of France was never going to marry such a low-born girl from an all but random Italian family. Eventually, the king would learn it too.

Their love was idealistic and childish, and most likely never consummated, but it was love nevertheless. When the queen forcibly separated the pair, sending Marie and Horton to La Rochelle for a temporary exile, it said that Louis sobbed while Marie entered the carriage. He desperately tried to press his final gift of pearls into her hands. The secret letters back and forth continued for a while, as did the gifts that Louis sent to his Marie, including a tiny pet dog. But then the letters became more distant, more cordial, and they slowed. Even Louis understood the truth of the situation, the inevitability of his important high-ranking marriage. I imagine it probably affected King Louis when Mazarin wrote him a letter describing his own needs.

by saying, quote, she has an ambition without bounds, a restless and awkward spirit, a contempt for all the world, no prudent in her conduct and inclination to all extravagancies, end quote. The marriages of his nieces, the Cardinal insured, would be on his terms and for his own advantage. Murray was heartbroken and Hortense listened to her sobbing every night. Her sister was in love with a king, and a king loved her. And yet even God's own vessel on earth wasn't more powerful than the laws of family dynasty that compelled him to marry a foreign princess. Louis XIV was quickly married off to a cousin, Maria Teresa of Spain,

and Mazarin equally quickly arranged a marriage between Marie and an important Italian nobleman, Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, who apparently was shocked to find that his bride was still a virgin, coming from the Den of Sin that was France. Finally, it was Hortense's turn for marriage. For her uncle Mazarin, a man these sisters would come to loathe for his coldness and disciplinarian manner to pick one of the many glittering offers on the table for the prettiest of the mazarinets.

One of the offers was from the exiled Charles II, the son of the executed English King Charles I. Charles II had escaped England after the rise of Oliver Cromwell. While in France, Charles had been captivated by the young Hortons, but Maserine rejected his proposal. He didn't believe a man in exile would have much to offer his young niece. I'm sure he was kicking himself just a few months later when the English monarchy was restored and Charles became King Charles II. Another of the proposals was from Charles and Charles.

Emmanuel II, the Duke of Savoy, but a squabble over the inclusion of an important castle in Hortense's dowry caused the Duke to withdraw his offer. Still, no one doubted that Hortense would make a fantastic marriage. Hortens was Mazarin's personal favorite of the girls, for her beauty, her wit, and intelligence, and he decided that she, more than the others, would be his primary heir. This may be partly explained why the husband he chose for her was a rich prominent man, the son of an important military officer, but surprisingly not a man with an illustrious family history. Mazarin knew that he was approaching death and he wanted Hortense's husband to be able to take on the Mazarin title. And so, at her uncle's behest, 15-year-old Hortense married a 29-year-old

man named Armand Charles de la Mour de la Milleuray. Eight days later, Mazarin died. Armand became the new Duke de Mazarin, and with the combined wealth of his new bride, became one of the richest men in Europe. Armand was an awful man. For one, they report that he had an interest in Hortense from the time that she was nine years old, which is absolutely creepy enough, after their marriage, he became a downright terror. I don't know if it's worth diagnosing him posthumously with mental illness. Certainly, some of his behavior comes across as erratic. Armand was wildly jealous of Hortens and possessive of her. He also became strangely religious and prudish in a way that veered into instability. With her dowry, Hortens inherited from her uncle a vast art

collection of masterpieces, paintings and sculptures. Screaming that they were immoral, her husband raced through the halls of the palace, using a knife to cut or scratch over the exposed genitals of any nude paintings and chipping away at the nude sculptures. Hortens had to watch in tears as her deranged husband destroyed some of the most beautiful art in the world. Armand also had it in mind that milking cows was too erotic for women. The udders, he believed, would lower them into immorality. He had all of the front teeth of all of his female servants knocked out so that they wouldn't attract any attention from the male servants. As for his wife Hortens, well, she simply shined too brightly in social situations in Paris. Jealous of her happiness and the time she spent

with others, Armand forced her away to travel with him to the distant rural corners of France where he had inherited property, even when Hortons was eight months pregnant. He would burst in on her in the middle of the night to try to catch her cheating, and he had her followed nearly any time she left her chambers. But yes, miserable as their marriage was, Hortens had four children with Armand. Though in her memoirs, her maternal warmth is somewhat lacking. The children are really only mentioned in regards to her own suffering, being forced to travel while pregnant, never allowed to rest. Perhaps that was a defense mechanism, distancing herself from her children, because of what Hortons would do next. With the help of her

brother, Hortons plotted her escape. Her brother procured the horses for her and arranged the secret travel, dressed as a man. Hortense left France by carriage, leaving her four young children behind. Under cover of darkness, Hortense made her way to Rome to escape her husband and be with her sister, Marie, by then the Princess Colonna. Hortens attempted to end her marriage legally, but she had no power or recourse against the demands of her husband, who insisted that she returned to him. Still, King Louis XIV, took mercy on her, the girl he had grown up alongside at court and whose sister he had once loved. He offered Hortons his protection and an annual pension of 24,000 livres. Hortense was also offered

the protection of her former suitor, the Duke of Savoy, who allowed Hortense to come and live on his property, and who may or may not have been having an affair with Hortons at the time, depending on who you read. It was there at the Duke's comfortable estate in Chambay, that Hortense wrote her memoirs. It was a brilliant strategic move on her part, even though Hortense was, at this time still in her 20s. It was a chance for her to frame her life on her terms, to tell of her escape from her husband,

which was already well known as a scandalous piece of gossip, but to tell it with her as the heroine. The book was a wild success, so popular that it actually spawned imitations. There were fake memoirs that claimed to be written by her sister Marie, who had also, by this point, run away from her own unhappy marriage. Marie actually eventually did follow Hortense's lead, and she wrote her own real memoir, claiming that she needed to set the record straight from all the fakes.

While in Chambre, Hortense wrote that she had finally found the peace that had alluded her for the early part of her life, but peace wouldn't last long. The Duke of Savoy died, and whether or not he and Hortent were, actually lovers, his widow believed that they were, and she cast Hortense out. Hortense's own husband took advantage of the tumultuous situation to freeze all of Hortense's income, including the money that she was receiving from the king. Hortense's options were running dry, and she had few places left to turn. Fortunately for her, she was about to receive an interesting offer. The English ambassador to France, a weasel-faced man named Ralph Moll.

Montague was unhappy with his position in England. He blamed it on Charles II's favorite mistress, Louise de Kierral, Duchess of Portsmouth. Montague needed his own way to advance himself, to gain the king's favor, to return to the inner circle. His answer was Hortens Mancini. By this point, Hortens was a bona fide celebrity, beautiful and rich in terms of clout, but poor in terms of money. Montague suggested a mutually beneficial arrangement, tried to become King Charles II's mistress. After all, he had been charmed by her a lifetime ago

when he wanted to marry her, and now she was famous. So Horton snuck into England on the pretense of visiting one of her nieces, Mary of Modena, who was married to King Charles II's younger brother, James the Duke of York. The seduction plan worked almost instantly, Charles was appropriately charmed by Hortense and accepted her into his retinue of mistresses, an illustrious group of women that included Portsmouth, the Duchess of Cleveland, and the actress

Nell Gwynne. Portsmouth was apparently distraught and came to Montague weeping when she found out that the king was giving his attention to Hortense instead of her, and I'm sure Montague did his best to conceal his glee. But Portsmouth didn't need to weep for long. Though Hortense was one of the king's mistresses, and though he gave a generous stipend to her, she didn't remain the favorite for long, and soon enough, he returned to Louisa's Portsmouth's arms. Hortense, famous and attractive as she was, was too social for the king's tastes,

and by that I mean she tended to flirt and do more than flirt with other men and women. There was the relationship with the King's illegitimate daughter and the daughter of one of her fellow mistresses, Anne, which we discussed earlier. Anne's husband was so scandalized by the fencing in their underwear thing that he whisked her away from London to the country, where it said Anne spent weeks in bed doing nothing but crying and kissing a portrait of Hortens. Hortons also had a relationship, whether flirtatious or more, with the Prince of Monica. which so miffed the king that he cut off Hortense's salary, though he reinstated it a few days later. The King of England, for his part, liked Hortense plenty,

and couldn't for the life of him understand why the King of France couldn't find a way to provide for this charming creature. But Hortens' real coup in England wasn't finding her way into the king's bed. It was the parties and society events that she held in her living room. The term salon is a lot of the king's bed. a little anachronistic here, but it's what best described what Hortons was doing, bringing scientists, philosophers, and writers to talk and drink and gamble. The salons were wildly influential in terms of culture. The scientific articles that she brought up would become widely read and popular. In the case of a

paper by Fontenow, it actually led to it being translated. And Horton set London fashion, what to wear, to eat, what to drink. The salons were also tremendously important when it came to women. During a time when women were thought to be frivolous and unable to handle their own finances, Hortons and her friends were playing cards

and gambling. Women gambling alongside men, losing and winning money as equals. All the while, her incredibly litigious, stubborn, and jealous husband back in France was attempting to get the courts to force his wife. to come back to him. After the death of King Charles II in England, the throne went to his

younger brother, James, a Catholic, which didn't sit well with the Protestant population. In 1688, the glorious revolution in England bloodlessly overthrew James to leapfrog the throne to his daughter and son-in-law, who ruled jointly as William and Mary. The next year, Hortense's husband Armand filed a lawsuit in France, which said that Hortons had no right to her dowry and either needed to return to him or be locked away in a convent. The court ruled in his favor, but Hortons's lawyers had an angle. Hortons had racked up a considerable debt in England, and English law prevented her from leaving the country until those debts were paid. Well, that's ridiculous, Armand scoffed. My wife had no legal right to contract debts without her husband's permission.

He refused to pay, let alone recognize those debts, and so legally he and Hortense were in a stalemate. Hortense remained in England through the brief reign of James into the rule of William and Mary, who still provided for her, albeit at a much reduced pension. They provided for her until Hortense died in 1699 at age 53. Some euphemistically say that she drank herself to death, but more realistic, scholars understand that it was most likely suicide. The diarist John Evelyn wrote of her death that she was, quote, reported to have hastened her death by the intemperate drinking strong spirits. It's understood that the euphemism meant that she drank a number of tonics that were known to

cause death. At last, her jealous husband, Armand, would be able to get his claws into her. after Hortense's death, he did pay her English debts, and he claimed her remains, carding her casket along to all of his remote visits to the French countryside, the way he had tried to take her in life. Only in a coffin was Hortens finally silent and obedient. Eventually, she was buried with her uncle, as she had requested, but in the end that didn't matter. When the French Revolution came, her bones and Cardinal Mazarin's bones would be thrown into the river. So ends the strange, fantastic life of Hortens Mancini, who did all she could to

live her life on her own terms, who took lovers and charmed kings and wrote her own story in her own words before anyone else fully understood the power of that. Stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about her legacy. You can have opinions, you can have like a strong stance. and then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationship.

I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHeart Podcast presents Soccer Moms. So I'm Leanne. Yeah. This is my best friend Janet. And we have been joined at the Hipsons High School.

Absolutely. Now a redacted amount of years. later. We're still joined at the hip. Just a little bit bigger hips, wider. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate our youth soccer games in the back of my Honda Odyssey. With all the snacks and drink. Sidebar.

Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer? They had a bogo. Well, then you got it. Do you want a white collar or something here? Just take it. What are y'all doing? Microphones? Are you making a rap album? I would. Come on. I would buy it. Cutts through the defense like a hot knife

through sponge cake. That sounds delicious. Oh, you're lucky I'm not a drug addict. You're lucky I'm not an alcoholic. You're lucky I'm not a killer. I love this team and I'm really trying to be a figure in their lives that they can rely on. Oh. Listen to soccer moms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

One strange footnote in the story of Hortens Mancini is that her granddaughter would become the mother to five daughters her sister. and four of those daughters would go on to become mistresses of Louis the 15th. There's another Hortland legacy that I find more personally relevant. While in England, her salons became the center of culture and trends. The food and beverages she served not only became trendy, but also became associated with the upper class and the intellectual elite. Hortense's final affair, an affair of the mind, not the body, was with the older fellow French exile, Charles de Saint-Everemon. Hortense and

Evermond shared a taste for a newly popular type of wine, sparkling and specially grown in France, although the Benedictine monk most famous for making it was trying his best to rid his wine of the bubbles. That monk was Dom Perignon, and Hortens-Mancini serving his wine at her parties helped to craft the drink's reputation for being sophisticated, a drink for bon vivant who enjoyed living life to the fullest. It's a reputation for the beverage that still persists to this day. I'm speaking, of course, of champagne. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.

The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz. Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by Rima Ilkayali and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at noblebloodtales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions.

You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Thank you.